Thursday, July 31

First Edition Books - J K Rowling - "The Tales of Beedle the Bard"

After finishing the Harry Potter series, J.K Rowling wrote "The Tales of Beedle the Bard" (see Carousel in left-hand column), she has now signed over her royalties in it to the Children's High Level Group charity, which she co-founded, and which supports institutionalized children. It is hoped that the book will raise in the region of $8 million for the charity.

(Handwritten edition of The Tales of Beedle the Bard on auction at Sotheby's)

J.K. Rowling refers to the book, which is a collection of tales on wizards and wizardy, in her Harry Potter books. The first editions of the book were seven handwritten copies. Six of these copies were given away as gifts, the seventh was auctioned off and was purchased by retailer Amazon in December for almost $4 million.

Miss Rowling said the new edition would include illustrations and an introduction done by herself. "

Publication date for the book is December 4th. It will be published by Bloomsbury in the UK and Scholastic in the US. Amazon also has plans to produce a leather-bound collectors' edition of 100,000 copies for $100.The Bloomsbury edition priced at £6.99 and the Scholastic edition priced at $12.99, will include a commentary on each fairy tale from Albus Dumbledore.

The handwritten autographed first editions of the Tales of Beedle the Bard are extensively illustrated by J.K Rowling herself. It is "bound in brown Moroccan leather and embellished with five hand-chased hallmarked sterling silver ornaments and mounted moonstones".

"The Tales of Beedle the Bard" are, according to Rowling, a "distillation of the themes found in the Harry Potter books", and she says it represents a goodbye to the world she has inhabited for the last 17 years.

It is worth bearing in mind that a copy of the proof of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is on offer at ABE books at the moment for almost $500,000. so first editions books are generally a wise investment